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Chapter 15
The Man of the Island
FROM the side of the hill, which was here
steep and stony, a spout of gravel was
dislodged and fell rattling and bounding
through the trees.
My eyes turned instinctively in that
direction, and I saw a figure leap with
great rapidity behind the trunk of a pine.
What it was, whether bear or man or monkey,
I could in no wise tell.
It seemed dark and shaggy; more I knew not.
But the terror of this new apparition
brought me to a stand.
I was now, it seemed, cut off upon both
sides; behind me the murderers, before me
this lurking nondescript.
And immediately I began to prefer the
dangers that I knew to those I knew not.
Silver himself appeared less terrible in
contrast with this creature of the woods,
and I turned on my heel, and looking
sharply behind me over my shoulder, began
to retrace my steps in the direction of the
boats.
Instantly the figure reappeared, and making
a wide circuit, began to head me off.
I was tired, at any rate; but had I been as
fresh as when I rose, I could see it was in
vain for me to contend in speed with such
an adversary.
From trunk to trunk the creature flitted
like a deer, running manlike on two legs,
but unlike any man that I had ever seen,
stooping almost double as it ran.
Yet a man it was, I could no longer be in
doubt about that.
I began to recall what I had heard of
cannibals.
I was within an ace of calling for help.
But the mere fact that he was a man,
however wild, had somewhat reassured me,
and my fear of Silver began to revive in
proportion.
I stood still, therefore, and cast about
for some method of escape; and as I was so
thinking, the recollection of my pistol
flashed into my mind.
As soon as I remembered I was not
defenceless, courage glowed again in my
heart and I set my face resolutely for this
man of the island and walked briskly
towards him.
He was concealed by this time behind
another tree trunk; but he must have been
watching me closely, for as soon as I began
to move in his direction he reappeared and
took a step to meet me.
Then he hesitated, drew back, came forward
again, and at last, to my wonder and
confusion, threw himself on his knees and
held out his clasped hands in supplication.
At that I once more stopped.
"Who are you?"
I asked.
"Ben Gunn," he answered, and his voice
sounded hoarse and awkward, like a rusty
lock.
"I'm poor Ben Gunn, I am; and I haven't
spoke with a Christian these three years."
I could now see that he was a white man
like myself and that his features were even
pleasing.
His skin, wherever it was exposed, was
burnt by the sun; even his lips were black,
and his fair eyes looked quite startling in
so dark a face.
Of all the beggar-men that I had seen or
fancied, he was the chief for raggedness.
He was clothed with tatters of old ship's
canvas and old sea-cloth, and this
extraordinary patchwork was all held
together by a system of the most various
and incongruous fastenings, brass buttons,
bits of stick, and loops of tarry gaskin.
About his waist he wore an old brass-
buckled leather belt, which was the one
thing solid in his whole accoutrement.
"Three years!"
I cried.
"Were you shipwrecked?"
"Nay, mate," said he; "marooned."
I had heard the word, and I knew it stood
for a horrible kind of punishment common
enough among the buccaneers, in which the
offender is put ashore with a little powder
and shot and left behind on some desolate
and distant island.
"Marooned three years agone," he continued,
"and lived on goats since then, and
berries, and oysters.
Wherever a man is, says I, a man can do for
himself.
But, mate, my heart is sore for Christian
diet.
You mightn't happen to have a piece of
cheese about you, now?
No? Well, many's the long night I've
dreamed of cheese--toasted, mostly--and
woke up again, and here I were."
"If ever I can get aboard again," said I,
"you shall have cheese by the stone."
All this time he had been feeling the stuff
of my jacket, smoothing my hands, looking
at my boots, and generally, in the
intervals of his speech, showing a childish
pleasure in the presence of a fellow
creature.
But at my last words he perked up into a
kind of startled slyness.
"If ever you can get aboard again, says
you?" he repeated.
"Why, now, who's to hinder you?"
"Not you, I know," was my reply.
"And right you was," he cried.
"Now you--what do you call yourself, mate?"
"Jim," I told him.
"Jim, Jim," says he, quite pleased
apparently.
"Well, now, Jim, I've lived that rough as
you'd be ashamed to hear of.
Now, for instance, you wouldn't think I had
had a pious mother--to look at me?" he
asked.
"Why, no, not in particular," I answered.
"Ah, well," said he, "but I had--remarkable
pious.
And I was a civil, pious boy, and could
rattle off my catechism that fast, as you
couldn't tell one word from another.
And here's what it come to, Jim, and it
begun with chuck-farthen on the blessed
grave-stones!
That's what it begun with, but it went
further'n that; and so my mother told me,
and predicked the whole, she did, the pious
woman!
But it were Providence that put me here.
I've thought it all out in this here lonely
island, and I'm back on piety.
You don't catch me tasting rum so much, but
just a thimbleful for luck, of course, the
first chance I have.
I'm bound I'll be good, and I see the way
to.
And, Jim"--looking all round him and
lowering his voice to a whisper--"I'm
rich."
I now felt sure that the poor fellow had
gone crazy in his solitude, and I suppose I
must have shown the feeling in my face, for
he repeated the statement hotly: "Rich!
Rich!
I says.
And I'll tell you what: I'll make a man of
you, Jim.
Ah, Jim, you'll bless your stars, you will,
you was the first that found me!"
And at this there came suddenly a lowering
shadow over his face, and he tightened his
grasp upon my hand and raised a forefinger
threateningly before my eyes.
"Now, Jim, you tell me true: that ain't
Flint's ship?" he asked.
At this I had a happy inspiration.
I began to believe that I had found an
ally, and I answered him at once.
"It's not Flint's ship, and Flint is dead;
but I'll tell you true, as you ask me--
there are some of Flint's hands aboard;
worse luck for the rest of us."
"Not a man--with one--leg?" he gasped.
"Silver?"
I asked.
"Ah, Silver!" says he.
"That were his name."
"He's the cook, and the ringleader too."
He was still holding me by the wrist, and
at that he give it quite a wring.
"If you was sent by Long John," he said,
"I'm as good as pork, and I know it.
But where was you, do you suppose?"
I had made my mind up in a moment, and by
way of answer told him the whole story of
our voyage and the predicament in which we
found ourselves.
He heard me with the keenest interest, and
when I had done he patted me on the head.
"You're a good lad, Jim," he said; "and
you're all in a clove hitch, ain't you?
Well, you just put your trust in Ben Gunn--
Ben Gunn's the man to do it.
Would you think it likely, now, that your
squire would prove a liberal-minded one in
case of help--him being in a clove hitch,
as you remark?"
I told him the squire was the most liberal
of men.
"Aye, but you see," returned Ben Gunn, "I
didn't mean giving me a gate to keep, and a
suit of livery clothes, and such; that's
not my mark, Jim.
What I mean is, would he be likely to come
down to the toon of, say one thousand
pounds out of money that's as good as a
man's own already?"
"I am sure he would," said I.
"As it was, all hands were to share."
"AND a passage home?" he added with a look
of great shrewdness.
"Why," I cried, "the squire's a gentleman.
And besides, if we got rid of the others,
we should want you to help work the vessel
home."
"Ah," said he, "so you would."
And he seemed very much relieved.
"Now, I'll tell you what," he went on.
"So much I'll tell you, and no more.
I were in Flint's ship when he buried the
treasure; he and six along--six strong
***.
They was ashore nigh on a week, and us
standing off and on in the old WALRUS.
One fine day up went the signal, and here
come Flint by himself in a little boat, and
his head done up in a blue scarf.
The sun was getting up, and mortal white he
looked about the cutwater.
But, there he was, you mind, and the six
all dead--dead and buried.
How he done it, not a man aboard us could
make out.
It was battle, ***, and sudden death,
leastways--him against six.
Billy Bones was the mate; Long John, he was
quartermaster; and they asked him where the
treasure was.
'Ah,' says he, 'you can go ashore, if you
like, and stay,' he says; 'but as for the
ship, she'll beat up for more, by thunder!'
That's what he said.
"Well, I was in another ship three years
back, and we sighted this island.
'Boys,' said I, 'here's Flint's treasure;
let's land and find it.'
The cap'n was displeased at that, but my
messmates were all of a mind and landed.
Twelve days they looked for it, and every
day they had the worse word for me, until
one fine morning all hands went aboard.
'As for you, Benjamin Gunn,' says they,
'here's a musket,' they says, 'and a spade,
and pick-axe.
You can stay here and find Flint's money
for yourself,' they says.
"Well, Jim, three years have I been here,
and not a bite of Christian diet from that
day to this.
But now, you look here; look at me.
Do I look like a man before the mast?
No, says you.
Nor I weren't, neither, I says."
And with that he winked and pinched me
hard.
"Just you mention them words to your
squire, Jim," he went on.
"Nor he weren't, neither--that's the words.
Three years he were the man of this island,
light and dark, fair and rain; and
sometimes he would maybe think upon a
prayer (says you), and sometimes he would
maybe think of his old mother, so be as
she's alive (you'll say); but the most part
of Gunn's time (this is what you'll say)--
the most part of his time was took up with
another matter.
And then you'll give him a nip, like I do."
And he pinched me again in the most
confidential manner.
"Then," he continued, "then you'll up, and
you'll say this: Gunn is a good man (you'll
say), and he puts a precious sight more
confidence--a precious sight, mind that--in
a gen'leman born than in these gen'leman of
fortune, having been one hisself."
"Well," I said, "I don't understand one
word that you've been saying.
But that's neither here nor there; for how
am I to get on board?"
"Ah," said he, "that's the hitch, for sure.
Well, there's my boat, that I made with my
two hands.
I keep her under the white rock.
If the worst come to the worst, we might
try that after dark.
Hi!" he broke out.
"What's that?"
For just then, although the sun had still
an hour or two to run, all the echoes of
the island awoke and bellowed to the
thunder of a cannon.
"They have begun to fight!"
I cried.
"Follow me."
And I began to run towards the anchorage,
my terrors all forgotten, while close at my
side the marooned man in his goatskins
trotted easily and lightly.
"Left, left," says he; "keep to your left
hand, mate Jim!
Under the trees with you!
Theer's where I killed my first goat.
They don't come down here now; they're all
mastheaded on them mountings for the fear
of Benjamin Gunn.
Ah! And there's the cetemery"--cemetery, he
must have meant.
"You see the mounds?
I come here and prayed, nows and thens,
when I thought maybe a Sunday would be
about doo.
It weren't quite a chapel, but it seemed
more solemn like; and then, says you, Ben
Gunn was short-handed--no chapling, nor so
much as a Bible and a flag, you says."
So he kept talking as I ran, neither
expecting nor receiving any answer.
The cannon-shot was followed after a
considerable interval by a volley of small
arms.
Another pause, and then, not a quarter of a
mile in front of me, I beheld the Union
Jack flutter in the air above a wood.